


Call Me Back When You Love Me Back

by GallifreyGod



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Arguing, F/M, Ficlet, I Don't Even Know, It's probably all of that unresolved sexual tension, One Shot, Stealing lines from the trailer, takes place in s3, unrequited love that isn't actually unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-26 13:27:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18181205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallifreyGod/pseuds/GallifreyGod
Summary: He stared at her for a minute, feeling like the breath had been sucked straight out of his lungs. “We have come too far to give up now.”“We?” she almost laughed, the word sounding just as incredulous as she wanted it too.





	Call Me Back When You Love Me Back

**Author's Note:**

> the trailer has fucking stressed me out so here I am, trying to put the pieces of it together in my mind. if you haven't seen the st3 trailer, this might not make a whole ton of sense.

He waited at that fancy restaurant table for a lot longer than he'd like to admit. Must've taken him telling the waiter _'No thanks, I'm going to wait to order'_ a couple of times for him to realize what had happened. He had been stood up. Not by some flaky hookup that he had pried the number off of at the Hideaway... No, he was stood up by Joyce. 

An hour or so had passed and he couldn't think of any more plausible excuses that she would be able to conjure up and satisfy his curiosity as to why she ditched. It stung quite a bit, to think about the person he cared so deeply about not even bothering to call. _No_... he told himself. That was too cold. Whatever reasons she had, they were probably good ones.

Ever since Bob's tragic demise, Joyce had been different. She had every right to be. It's not every day when you watch your boyfriend ripped to shreds right in front of your own eyes. He couldn't blame her for that. He knew that if he were in her shoes, he'd fall apart even worse than she did. 

Joyce was resilient. Hopper had known that about her ever since she skinned her knee on the playground in 3rd grade and just kept running. Although, this wasn't exactly comparable to skinning her knee. More like skinning her soul. He couldn't be mad at her for not bouncing back from pain as she once could. She'd survived quite a bit, he might as well grant her some laxity. 

Even though Joyce had changed, a lot of her had stayed the same. Still, he couldn't help but wish things could go back to normal. Everybody did. Now, she always seemed to be preoccupied with whatever was clouding her mind. A million thoughts going a million miles an hour, all while she stayed nearly silent. To put it simply, he missed her. The old her. The one who seemed so far away right now. 

Eventually, when it was clear that she was not going to show up, Hopper slammed a few bills down on the table to make up for the time he had spent occupying a seat. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

"I'm sorry." were the first words that came out of her mouth while Hopper stood in the doorway. She was looking down at her feet, sheepishly hiding her face like she always did when she felt shame.

'It's fine." Hopper sighed, walking in and shutting the door behind him. "It's probably... it's probably too soon anyway. I should've known." any anger he felt suddenly melted away when he saw how bad she felt. She didn't even need to say it; he knew. 

"What is that?" he asked, pointing to the folder on her coffee table. He could just hardly make out the words _'Hawkins Realty'_ before his blood went cold.

"It's nothing." 

"Looks like listing paperwork." he pressed. "I got the same packet when I put my old trailer up for sale. What the hell is going on? I thought you said you weren't going to move."

“Y’know, Bob thought it would be a good idea to move to Maine; get us away from all of this. I didn’t really think it was a good idea at first, and now it just… That's why I didn't show up. I didn't know how I was going to tell you.” 

“Why are you so hellbent on leaving Hawkins, Joyce?” his brow furrowed, his face contorting to look much angrier than he intended.

“Weird things happen here, Hop. Not just weird; evil. I mean, we’ve witnessed it first hand. We’ve lived it. And if you don’t run from it while you still can, it swallows you up whole.” she paused. “I almost lost Will. Is it really a good idea to stick around and press my luck?”

“Joyce... You don't have to leave. Look, the lab is gone! It's shut down for good. Nothing bad has happened since. Even down at the station, we're doing everything we can to protect the town. It's important to me that you feel safe. I want you to feel like this can still be your home.” from the outside looking in, it would seem like he was almost pleading with her. In more ways than one, he was. 

“I don’t! I don’t feel safe and I don’t feel like this is home anymore! Every time something bad happens, all I can think is _‘God, I just wanna go home.’_ and yet I am home. I'm standing in my own house and I still don't feel safe.” her voice started to raise, defenses kicking in as she wondered why he was acting so blind to what they had witnessed. Hell, why wasn't he packing up and moving somewhere far away too?

He stared at her for a minute, feeling like the breath had been sucked straight out of his lungs. “We have come too far to give up now.”

“ _We?_ ” she almost laughed, the word sounding just as incredulous as she wanted it too. She wanted to yell at him that this didn't affect him as much as it affected her. She was always the one dealing with the aftermath, wasn't she?

“Yes, Joyce. _We._ This isn’t just about you and Will anymore, okay? A lot has come out of this, good and bad. It’s affecting all of us now! ‘Cause you didn’t just almost lose Will. The kids almost lost their friend. I lost Benny. Nancy lost Barb. You lost Bob. Somehow, I gained a kid out of this. It isn’t just about what happened to you and Jonathan and Will anymore. If we don’t stick together and combat this shit as a whole, who knows what’s going to happen next!”

“So… so, what? You want me to stay here, put my family in danger just to what? Fight off monsters?” 

“Look, all I’m saying is… " he sighed, his voice lowering back to a room appropriate volume. Arguing wouldn't get him what he wanted most. "A puzzle only works if all of the pieces are there. All of us, every single one of us who knows what truth is lying beneath the ground here, need each other. It just doesn’t seem like a good time to break all of us up.”

“When is it going to be a good time, Hop? When everybody is dead? When we’ve all lost something that means anything to us? When it’s not even worth it anymore? I can’t think of a single reason to stay anymore.”

“For me, Joyce. For me.”


End file.
